Currently browsing the "DVDs" category.

Seriously, A Serious Man?

Seriously? That’s what I thought when I heard the Coen Brothers film announced as an Oscar nominee for best picture. It’s out on DVD now and I have to admit I saw it a while ago but I struggled with my review because all I wanted to say about it was “I hated it.” I can’t help but think that if anybody but Joel and Ethan Coen (Academy darlings that they are) had made this movie, it would never have been nominated for an Academy Award.

Sunshine Cleaning

I will repeat what I said before; what is the deal with Amy Adams? I don’t get it that she is all over the place, pretty much playing the same role over and over. In Sunshine Cleaning, she is a sweet, well-meaning girl who is not making ends meet and not having the life everyone thought she would when she was a popular cheerleader in high school. Here she is a single mom, with a married boyfriend, barely making a living as a maid. Her kid has some behavior problems in school and they suggest she put him somewhere that can deal with him, i.e. private school she cannot afford. The married boyfriend who is a cop suggests that maybe she could make more money cleaning up after dead people – some homicides, a suicide or two and lots of people who died at home. And so she starts her Sunshine Cleaning business and hires her deadbeat sister to help her.

Apres Vous

If you’re looking for a tasty little French romantic comedy, Apres Vous is just the ticket. Nothing deep here, nor laugh out loud funny, but the French have a way with the romances and I have a thing for Daniel Auteuil. Here he stars as a restaurant manager (Antoine) who saves a stranger in the park (Louis) from hanging himself and then tries to repair his life. He finagles him a job as sommelier at his restaurant but things get a bit more complicated when he decides to get Louis and his ex-girlfriend Blanche back together. Of course, he falls for her himself losing his own girlfriend along the way. He can’t tell the suicidal Louis, but cannot help himself and naturally Louis finds out.

Broken English

This is the epitome of a chick flick: Nora is 30-something single woman in New York City, friends are all partnered up, she only meets loser guys, she is feeling lonely, drinking too much, having anxiety attacks, and basically spiraling out of control. But just when it gets to the edge of too much, in pops charming Frenchman Julien. By now she is totally jaded and nearly pushes him away, but succumbs to his charms and allows herself to have a wonderful weekend with him only to find that he is leaving to go back to France. So what does she do? After a bit of soul searching and a visit to a psychic, she quits her job and heads to Paris to see him. Only she loses his number (and he has a name like Smith so no phone book.) Won’t spoil the ending, but it is mostly a fun little movie.

Australia

I kind of wanted to see it when it was in the theaters, but it didn’t stay around that long and I missed it. Glad I saved the 9 bucks. Australia is a mess. There are four writers credited and I suspect there were lots more. And Good God, it is long! And what is it really about? Who’s story is it? Is it the beautiful boy’s? He is the best part, but even there the story is a muddle. As for genres, it’s western/romance/war epic/political drama with a dash of the Wizard of Oz for good measure. And it is one layer of cliches on top of another. Oh, and about that romance – the chemistry between Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman is not even remotely there. The politically correct thread about the treatment of the Aborigines is just not that affecting. In fact, none of the epic qualities that they tried for really work. They have so many elements here to work with– the vast otherness of Australia, the archetypal evil rival cattlemen, the dark coming of the war, the upper crust English lady cum fish out of water meets outback Drover romance, the wickedly misguided white people stealing the Aborigine children — and yet there is no focus. They are trying to tell too many stories at once and end up seeming to say nothing.

Ikiru 生きる & Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles 千里走单骑

I rented two films this week that coincidentally both center on older men and fractured relationships with their grown sons. Why do so many men and their fathers have such stormy relationships? Is it a testosterone thing? Of course it makes for good drama, though I am not sure men go out of their way to see films that remind them that their machismo gets in the way of a close bond. (We’ll leave the mother-daughter thing for a later time.) Ikiru 生きる, “To Live” (1952), a classic from Kurosawa, deals with a career bureaucrat finding out that he has only 6 months to live, who when he realizes that his own son is not there for him, goes out to find meaning elsewhere. Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles 千里走单骑 (2005) by Zhang Yimou is about a Japanese fisherman finding out that his son who is dying of cancer doesn’t want to see him, so he goes to China to shoot a folk opera his son had planned on filming and ends up getting involved in another father’s and son’s relationship.